


Earthquakes

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-12 00:38:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But John’s heart had fallen that same two-story drop the moment Rodney fucking vanished, leaving a gaping chasm in his place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Earthquakes

The claxon blare to the tune of Unscheduled Offworld Activation hasn’t turned off yet. John puts a hand to his forehead, grinding the heel between his eyes. “Can someone turn that damned thing off? It’s just us.”

“Of course,” Elizabeth says and someone waves a magic wand or does a chant or something, because the sound blessedly cuts out. Thirty seconds later, the worm-hole does too, with a whoosh of sound that has John’s brain throbbing in his skull.

“Ow,” he says.

“Colonel?”

He forces his eyes open, unsurprised to see Elizabeth frowning at him. He knows they look pretty awful, covered in mud and leaves where they aren’t scraped, bruised, or—in Teyla’s case—bleeding. “We’re fine, Dr. Weir. The planet wasn’t populated.”

Rodney makes a hacking noise like a cat with a hair-ball. He’s got a trail of mud streaked down either side of his face so that it looks like he was crying sludge. “Yes, and there’s a very obvious reason _why_ that miserable mud-ball is uninhabited.”

“There was an earthquake. Several, actually.” Teyla shifts her weight onto her good leg, looking bemusedly down at her mangled pants. They’re both cut into ragged hems just above her knees, like cut-off jean shorts from the Eighties, both calves dark with grime and dried blood. A cut on her left leg oozes sluggishly; it’s not deep, thankfully.

John’s just glad that the ruined pants don’t expose more. Once they’d pulled her free there’d been no time to worry about her modesty, just a frantic scramble across ground that bucked and shuddered like a rodeo horse, intent on throwing them into injured heaps.

But now that he’s here, mostly unhurt, John has to fight against the urge to back up until Teyla’s firmly caught between the press of his, Rodney’s, and Ronon’s body. He knows Ronon feels it; upstairs, a tech is looking a little too interested in Teyla’s injuries and John’s well aware the big man is rumbling like a lion, his hand firm against Teyla’s back. For support, of course.

“I think debriefing can wait,” Elizabeth says, amused. “Clean up, go see Beckett. Unless there’s something specific?”

“Well, there was mud. And rocks. And more mud. And, oh yes, there were more _rocks_ , too!” Rodney’s gearing himself up to go for a while, red-faced and furious that he’s filthy, injured, and wasted almost entire day on nothing. 

John empathizes—paperwork is something he started longing for after the first few hours of bucolic, muddy nothing, before the earthquakes set in—but his head hurts too damned much to listen to Rodney shout at anybody but someone with aspirin and maybe a cold cloth—and then he only wants Rodney to shout if the person doesn’t give John the aspirin and the cloth. He claps a hand over Rodney’s mouth—leaving muddy finger prints, he’s sure—and hustles him out of the control tower without a word.

He knows they’re being laughed at as they stumble their way down the hallways. They look pretty comical, after all, like little kids who’d spent a whole day out in a mud-pit, tussling together under warm summer sunshine. The truth is a little different—along with Teyla’s fall into a Venus-mud-pit-trap, intent on taking her in and not letting go, there was the little matter of Rodney falling down a suddenly-formed cliff. He’s fine, John knows; he certainly ran fast enough once they’d hauled him back to their level.

But John’s heart had fallen that same two-story drop the moment Rodney fucking _vanished_ , leaving a gaping chasm in his place.

Not so funny.

Teyla’s the only one with real injuries—despite Rodney’s loud complaints that he’s broken his shoulder—so the three of them end up loitering around her bedside while her leg is cleaned out and bandage by a nurse, Carson examining Teyla’s face and head.

“I don’t see why she gets the flashy-light thing,” Rodney grumbles as Teyla’s eyes are checked.

“Pupils dilating nicely,” Carson says with a smile, tucking away his light-pen. “Rodney, you didn’t hit your head, just your side. We can’t do a thing for bruises aside from giving you pain meds, which I’ve already dispensed. There’s no earthy reason for you to still be here in my infirmary, and I want you go. This mud you’re covered in stinks.”

It does, John realizes. Kind of a bitter, brackish smell with something sharp in it, like mint gone horribly wrong, that sticks in the back of your throat. John swallows convulsively, understanding why Rodney had made that hacking sound before. “He’s right, McKay. Come on, let’s go get cleaned up.”

A speaking glance over his shoulder confirms what he already knows: Ronon is staying, since Ronon managed to leap from trembling stone to shivering piece of dry ground like some kind of gazelle, sparing himself most of the mud and the worst of the scrapes and bruises. He nods at John before turning his eerily direct gaze back to Carson.

Shaking his head, John claps Rodney’s good shoulder and pushes him towards the entrance. Rodney doesn’t stop bitching but now that some of Carson’s painkillers have taken affect, John doesn’t mind as much. It’s oddly soothing as they head towards the communal showers set up next to the infirmary, where they always keep spare clothing; too many missions come back with them needing their clothes cut off, and John’s sick of walking back to his quarters in scrubs.

It’s empty, thankfully. Nobody really uses this room except for teams just back from a mission or if there’s some disaster. John strips out of his caked, heavy clothes with a frown of annoyance. “We may not be able to get some of this stuff out,” he says. “It’s kinda... fusing.”

The shower starts up in answer.

Shrugging, John carefully checks over his weapons and puts them on a high shelf before balling up his ruined clothes and tossing them in the corner. Ancient cleaning machines work a whole lot better than some of the portable units they’d been sent with, but he’s really not sure any of his things are going to be salvageable. Which is a problem. The _Deadalus_ can only carry so much and bullets have been a higher priority than clothes for a long time. But at the rate they’re—okay, so it’s primarily his team but that’s irrelevant—going, new uniforms are going to become a real need. Maybe when they send the next databurst to Earth he can sneak that in. Maybe—

The silence gets to him. Rodney’s not usually quiet, but now there’s only John’s thoughts and the slow, shuddering thud of his own heartbeat against the steady hiss of the shower-water as it streams down over both of them. Shaking water out of his eyes, John turns so water can sluice down his back, peering through dripping eyelashes to find Rodney. He’s not close, which is also unusual. The early days of Rodney having modesty around his teammates is long gone and he shucks off as casually as the rest of them.

Rodney’s standing almost completely still underneath the water, shoulders slumped and staring at nothing as water beats down on his back and shoulders. He’s angled so that his bad side, the one he’d landed on, gets most of the pressure. It probably hurts.

Atlantis never has a hot water problem, but for some reason almost all the shower-heads—or whatever they are—start at Shiatsu Massage pressure and, unless you’re particularly convincing, only get worse.

“Hey. Rodney.”

“Hm?” Rodney shudders a little as he comes back to himself and—

And John’s watching him fall again, watching as the ground just cracks open under their feet, dark and yawning and greedy, so fast that Rodney doesn’t have time to scream, John no time to shout as Rodney just _drops_ —

“—Colonel? Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” He forces a grin, blinking when he realizes that Rodney is standing in front of him. When did that happen? “Yeah, I’m fine, buddy. Are you okay?”

“What? Yes, yes, of course, I mean, I’m bruised and Carson is a _sadist_ for not giving me more meds, but. But you turned white. And kind of. Swayed.” Rodney’s eyes are flicking over his face anxiously. John finds himself entranced in the deep blue of his gaze, trying to figure out if one pupil is larger than the other.

He knows what he has to do. He has to grin and say something charming and amusing—or insulting—so he can step back under the water and forget that Rodney’s literally inches in front of him, instead of feet that had so abruptly turned into yards and could’ve been _miles_ for all John knew. He has to get some distance.

He can’t. “You _dropped_ ,” he says. His voice sound sandpaper rough to his own ears, wet with emotion. “You just—”

He doesn’t know if he moves first or if Rodney does. It doesn’t really matter, he supposes. It’s awkward as hell, both of them suddenly with too much arm and not enough chest and how much is too much, anyway, when you’ve got your naked chest pressed up against another guy’s naked chest, your face buried in his neck, arms as tight around his back as he’s got his around yours. John doesn’t know. He wants to pull away, to make this churning feeling in his stomach like he’s doing something wrong go away.

Except he can’t let go. Rodney is solid underneath his palms, skin giving as his fingers dig in deep, warm and _alive_ , with his mouth pressed to John’s temple.

“Are we,” he says. His voice is small and very unsure. “Are we doing this?”

“Doing what?” Water and Rodney’s skin muffle his voice, leaving it a rasping whisper.

“Nothing.” Rodney’s arms loosen. He doesn’t push John away, but he’s stiff and uncomfortable in John’s hold. Like the distance John’s been groping after is surrounding Rodney, no matter how tightly John presses to deny it. “Nothing at all. Um. Can you let go?”

John rubs his nose up the length of Rodney’s neck, his tongue flickering out to taste where Rodney’s pulse bangs against thin, so-breakable skin. “Nah.” He brings his lower-half up against Rodney so they’re touching from neck to knees, carefully moving his hands up and down in a way that can’t be misconstrued as anything but sexual.

“So... we are doing this?” Rodney squeaks. “I—would really like to be less confused right now.”

“Do you want to?” John nips above the pulse-point, tasting the vaguely sweetish water of Atlantis in contrast to salty skin and bitter, bitter hints of lingering mud. “Do this?”

“I want—I want this to not be something that affects our working relationship. Or. Or our friendship.”

“Wow, McKay, I didn’t realize being friends with me was so painful to say. You sound like you just swallowed a nail.”

Rodney opens his mouth to protest, looking miserable and annoyed all at once, but John catches his mouth and the words inside, licking them quiet as he kisses as fiercely as he knows how, forcing Rodney to let him in as deep as he wants to go. They’re both panting when John pulls back. Rodney’s mouth is much pinker than before and starting to swell, matching the flush that burns high on his cheekbones.

“Oh, my god,” Rodney says. “I know you never see it coming, but that includes when you’re _pursuing_ someone?”

“What am I, Pepe Le Pu?” John says, mostly because it’s true—he never sees it coming, including when he’s so locked up and tense with want that it takes Rodney falling off a cliff for him to realize just how bad this is. He wants Rodney. He’s _wanted_ Rodney, probably for months, and a little later he’ll sit down and think about when he realized that annoying, mouthy, _male_ scientists are doing it for him, and how this has the potential to fuck everything up for both of them.

Right then, John still has the image of Rodney’s body falling like a sack of grain tossed carelessly aside and he’ll do anything to burn it out of his mind. He kisses Rodney again, muffling more words, and rubs himself hard and tight against Rodney’s body until he _oophs_ into a wall.

“Hey, ow, watch it—these are real bruises!”

“Kiss ’em for your later,” John promises. He’s never been a fan of kissing, really. It’s always just been a prelude to the good stuff when he was with women, something skipped altogether his few occasions with men. But now John can’t stop the slick, heated glide of lips against his own, teeth clacking when one of them gets a little too eager, tongues rubbing together like John can give Rodney all the things John’s never known how to say _this_ way, so Rodney will know what this isn’t, and what it very, very much is.

Rodney pants like a bellows when his mouth is released for newer expanses to explore. There’s a hot spot right behind his ear that John spends several blissful moments licking, just to hear a hitch in Rodney’s breathing. “You’re a sadist,” Rodney complains. His dick is hard and leaking against John’s stomach, belying the whine to his words.

“Uh huh. That’s me. Sheppard the Sadist. It’s my call sign.”

“You talk too much. Jackass.” This time it’s Rodney who’s kissing him hard enough that John’s neck aches from the awkward angle, and that’s good too. It’s real, not some kind of soft-lit fantasy. It’s Rodney, pushy and demanding.

John sucks in air through his nose, feeling as fumbling and incompetent as a teenager in his first make-out session. He’s got both hands on Rodney’s ass, enjoying the hard flex as it fills out his palms perfectly. “Fuck, yes,” he gasps, biting Rodney’s lower lip. “C’mon.”

Rodney grunts, annoyed and then oh, oh his big, talented, capable hand is wrapped around both of their cocks, water slicking their skins as he moves back and forth, his thumb brushing against the head of John’s cock like he already knows what that does to him. John melts, because Jesus, this is better than good, it’s excellent. He rocks forward, shoving the head of his cock up into Rodney’s stomach so it scrapes against tight, softened curls, rubbing against the velvet skin of Rodney’s cock curving up to meet his own. They’re still kissing, still two kids who’ve never done this before, except Rodney’s working them both like he’s done this lots of times, lots of ways, and John wants this, he wants it now, and later and later _still_.

“Of course, of course,” Rodney says between kisses. “What, you think I’m going to say _no?_ You’re the hottest thing in two _galaxies_. Yes. Of course. You moron.”

John inhales sharply, swallowing back a sharp cry as his body reacts to conditioning he’s never known and comes hot and messy and perfect all over Rodney’s hand and stomach.

Rodney moans loud enough for both of them. He stares down, wide-eyed and shocked-looking as he takes in his smeared skin, then says, “Oh. Oh, god.”

There’s no obvious trigger but suddenly Rodney’s coming too, fucking hard into his own fist as he hisses through orgasm. John’s feeling no pain right then and he wraps his arms around Rodney’s shoulders, pulling them so it’s Rodney’s head against his own neck. “Yeah, McKay,” he says as Rodney jerks uncontrollably. “Yeah.”

After a while, the spigot directly above their heads turns on and washes them both clean.

“So, um. Was this.” Figures that Rodney wants to talk after sex. He’s jittery, shifting from foot to foot as John releases him and looks around for the soap.

Dropping it and then bending down to get is probably a little too cliched. Then again, this is Rodney. A man who likes airplane food probably likes a good cliche. “Was this what?”

“Just a.... you know. ‘Please stop almost dying’ adrenaline kind of thing?” Shampoo pops out from nowhere at all and Rodney accepts it like it’s his due; they’re all pretty blase about Atlantis offering things when asked, in some ways. Lathering it into his air produces a mountain of foam that trails down the sides of his face, giving him the look of white, glistening muttonchops.

“Sure, if you want it to be.” John works on his chest, one arm propped against the wall. The endorphines are starting to wear off and he’s feeling pretty damned exhausted. He’s earned it, he figures. “Or not. If you want that.”

A bubble trails into Rodney’s eyelashes. He blinks. “Are you trying to give me options? Because I’m not very good at options.”

“What are you good at?” John shifts so he’s leaning against the wall, hip cocked just the right way. He knows exactly what he looks like and Rodney’s gulped swallow is a gratifyingly acceptable response.

“Uh. I’m—I’m good at lots of things?”

“Like blow jobs?” Pushing off, John swaggers as much as he feels he can over the slippery floor until he’s right back into Rodney’s personal space. So most of their relationship is probably fueled by adrenaline-soaked, death-defying encounters. There’ve been worse things to start with. “Cause I gotta say, my technique is a little... rusty. Wanna practice?”

“Oh, god, please don’t _ever_ do that eyebrow thing again. Ever.” Rodney’s grin is just a little bit manic as he reaches out for John’s hips. “You look like some kind of demented Ernie.”

“As in Burt And?” Ew. That’s going to double his refractory time.

Rodney smirks. “Like we’re doing this here, anyway. Do you know what tile does to knees?”

John kisses him silent while steam dances around them, warm as it glances off their skin, water creating a curtain of light and sound to shield them just in case.


End file.
